


Gingerbread House

by Shamu



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, I'm not sure how long this is going to be, The incest isn't explicit, at any rate, but I wanted to use this to kinda feel out what Sister's character is, or exactly what it's going to cover, you can read it in or out depending on your preference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 19:36:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12991059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shamu/pseuds/Shamu
Summary: "Like I said, there’s no such thing as a death that can be accepted."This was originally intended to be part of a series, but I decided it was best to just leave it as a one-shot. I think it works best if you read it in tandem with my other Korekiyo pieces, but can nevertheless be read on its own. Cheers!





	Gingerbread House

**Author's Note:**

> So! I'm still getting used to Korekiyo's voice - and considering we get very little information about his sister, I've done my best to characterise her. I expect she'll start to change a bit as I explore her characterisation further. 
> 
> I'm tentatively naming her Ayumu (歩夢) for now. 
> 
> I study anthropology only as a hobby, so take any 'facts' presented throughout with a grain of salt. Kiyo's and Ayumu's musings are not necessarily my own opinions.
> 
> Finally, any feedback is gratefully received and highly appreciated. Thank you so much!

“Sweet Korekiyo, come here. I wish to tell you a story,” Sister said, beckoning him to follow. He excitedly put his book down, following after her.  
  
“Now,” she said, slippers padding along the tatami floor. “I think you will like this one in particular.” He didn’t doubt the truth of that. After all, her stories were always of interest to him. However, she was moving with that certain zeal - her body language just that little bit uncontrolled, her river of hair quivering this way and that. Even her voice betrayed her, that ever-so-slight upturn in her speech. She didn’t just expect it to excite _him_ \- it was exciting her.  
  
“You see… it’s a true story,” she said - sliding open the door to her room. “From a study, actually.” A folding screen divided her room. Though she never seemed to have visitors, she always said only those she trusted would ever be allowed to see through that screen. She’d smiled when she said that, pulling him by the arm. This time, though - she disappeared behind it without any acknowledgement of this most sacred barrier.  
  
Naturally following her, he glanced over this half of the room. Most of her medical equipment was lined up neatly by the wall - today must have been a good day, none of it looked used. Besides that, there was just her futon and her stack of books. Nevertheless, he felt a certain sense of privileged being here - as though everything on this half of the room was secret and precious and something only for them.  
  
She casually sat on the futon - her smile coming easy. Accompanying her, she finally told him her story.  
  
“A professor brings his child into work one evening. Now, being a professor, he has much to do - but she, being a child, has much she _wants_ to do. So he invents a game to distract her and gives her the only non-valuable thing he has on his person - a box with three burnt matches.” She held up three fingers, emoting dramatically as any good storyteller would. “Now, she plays with these matches awhile. But they’re just inert, boring scratches of wood - no? How could anyone have fun with just that?!”  
  
She leaned in towards him, the glitter in her eyes causing him to smile.  
  
“But you see, being a child, she makes do with the best tool that she has. She names the matches Hansel, Gretel, and the Witch. And so she plays on, the game becoming so much more interesting. She starts to weave stories together, make manifest her feelings through what was once just cast-away splinter. Pinewood transformed into flesh and blood, a Frankenstein’s monster birthed in a Professor’s office - visible only to her.”  
  
“Then. Suddenly, she drops the matches with a shriek.” She thumped her hand on the floor. “Father, Father! Please! Take the witch away, I’m afraid to touch her!”  
  
They laugh at that, her attempt at acting resulting in blotches of red on her cheeks. Slightly panting, she said while still laughing, “So you see, Korekiyo, that is the powerful force buried deep in every human mind. The ability to transmogrify anything into anything, forged from the background strokes of our culture and limited only by our knowledge. A child can go within one evening to knowing, seeing, feeling those matches as nothing but wood - to terrifying herself with the threat of being eaten alive by cannibalistic witches. Now, do you think an adult mind is all that different?”  
  
She hummed, looking at him. He considered the question awhile, before giving the response he was sure she would like. “Well, isn’t that just how children learn, by playing?”  
  
“Children never stop playing, not even when they are called adults,” she said. “We play with everything, the thing that drives all intelligent species. It’s where… Well, I believe, that nature - that ability to convince ourselves of the living that wasn’t there before - isn’t that the root of all spirituality, of all belief? The match becomes the witch, the cross becomes the God, the leaves and the grass and the earth itself is breaming with spirits…”  
  
“Even those action figures my classmates collect,” he continued - enraptured in her passion. “… Not that they would ever say this aloud, but on some level, do you not think that they think of them as alive? Fiction itself is like a collection of sign signals, stimulating our need to forge life into everything.”  
  
She smiled, “Yes, well said, Korekiyo.”  
  
“And…” he added, “I find it quite fascinating that the child chose to conjure the figment of a witch. As though she was inviting in the terror, delighting in it.”

Her smile widened, her brows raising. “Ah, yes. That is also true. Human beings seem naturally drawn to frightening things, don’t they, Korekiyo? Just as adults delight in horror stories. How often do we see happy things in the news, hm? Even us…” She laughed at that, “Even we - who are aware of our own fixations and stimuli, we are attracted to tragedy, are we not?”  
  
“Yes,” he mused. “Though, I feel our fixation on tragedy is not simply to feel that rush of adrenaline. That delighted terror you speak of… can really bring out the most beautiful parts of humanity. Through their struggle to overcome the imagined witch, they turn to their family members. They expose what they trust to protect them, what they find most precious. The news gives us a sense of place, an opportunity to re-evaluate what we have, who we have - fear transformed into appreciation.”  
  
“Or…” She leaned her head on his shoulder, their hair blending. “The fear can be used to control, to manipulate. That little girl conjured a witch only because she had been fed stories of Hansels and Gretels and Witches for her entire life. She has been told that witches are something to fear. Hungry, predatory, mysterious and foreign. Those stories, those feelings intersect - and so when it comes time for her subconscious to pick a story, that is the one she chooses. If witches were people, how horrible would that be?”  
  
“They are,” he corrected her. “And in my experience, they do not tend to have a preference for the taste of child’s flesh. So… you bring up a good point. Witches were demonised, pagan worshippers transformed out of ignorance - out of a need to control.”  
  
Nodding enthusiastically, she squeezed his arm.  
  
“What a thoughtful little brother I have, hmm?” She laughed. “Or perhaps I made you up, conjured you out of nothing by my internal desires. After all, you’re built like a match.”  
  
She made a point out of it, wrapping her finger and her thumb around the entire circumference of his forearm.  
  
He laughed, doing exactly the same to her - her arm even thinner. “You’re built like a match too, Sister. Perhaps we’re just a pair of burnt matches. Puppeted by a bored little girl.”  
  
“Hansel and Gretel.”  
  
“So, then. Who's the witch?”  
  
They looked at each other, the briefest of fearful expressions, and laughed.  
  
—  
  
Back to his room, back to his sanctuary. He sat in front the mirror.  
  
Eagerly, he peeled back his mask, her red lips… her face blazing up at him.  
  
“Sweet Korekiyo.”  
  
She was here! She was really here! All the terror in the world, this exhausting killing game, the constant act he had to keep up just being himself - none of that mattered, none of that mattered anymore because _she was here_.  
  
“You’ve made me so happy.”  
  
He didn’t scream.


End file.
